Southborough cop alleges sergeant unlawfully released prisoners

Sunday

Dec 25, 2011 at 12:01 AMDec 25, 2011 at 10:50 PM

A Southborough police officer has filed several complaints with state agencies against the town alleging he has been punished for attempting to expose what he believes is criminal misconduct on the force.

Brad Petrishen/Daily News staff

A Southborough police officer has filed several complaints with state agencies against the town alleging he has been punished for attempting to expose what he believes is criminal misconduct on the force.

Hired full time in 2006, Officer Michael Crenshaw has been on unpaid leave since July. He claims that stress from being unfairly punished for trying to blow the whistle on another officer’s “mind-boggling” misconduct has caused him to break out in shingles and rendered him unable to work.

Crenshaw has twice served as president of the town’s police union, and says complaints he filed on behalf of members were shoved under the rug by successive chiefs of the department and the town administrator.

Crenshaw alleges that Sgt. Timothy Slatkavitz, a veteran of the department and the current union president, made decisions that led to the escape or unlawful release of multiple prisoners over the past four years.

Crenshaw said the town hasn’t done due diligence in investigating the union’s claims, and has filed complaints against the town with the Inspector General’s Office, Attorney General’s Office and state Ethics Commission alleging he has been punished for being a whistleblower.

Crenshaw said shortly after he took over as union president, officers began coming to him with prior complaints about Slatkavitz.

The first incident regarded the unlawful release of a prisoner. On Oct. 7, 2007, police arrested Paul Lindauer, a Roslindale man wanted on a Boston police warrant for resisting arrest and assault and battery on a police officer.

According to the police report, the man swore at and spat upon police prior to his arrest, and had to be subdued with pepper spray before he could be cuffed.

While in a holding cell, Lindauer attempted suicide, Crenshaw said, and was taken to the hospital for evaluation.

In accordance with law, a police officer guarded Lindauer’s hospital room overnight. However Slatkavitz ordered the officer to leave Lindauer unattended and come back to the station when Slatkavitz took over the morning shift.

Lindauer left the hospital himself and came back to the police station to get his belongings, Crenshaw said, at which time Slatkavitz unlawfully released him a second time to his family on a promise to appear in court.

A heavily redacted Aug. 27, 2008, investigative report into the incident by then-chief William Webber confirms that Slatkavitz violated protocol but falls short of labeling his negligence criminal.

“Sgt. Slatkavitz did not arrange the prisoner’s release with the Court, nor did he seek my approval for it,” Webber wrote. “Proper procedure would have been to maintain a police officer at the hospital.

“In addition, releasing the prisoner without a bail arrangement after his return to the station was improper.”

Webber confirmed that one of the reasons Slatkavitz made the decision was that “Oct. 8 was Columbus Day and the sergeant was concerned about having enough police cruisers at the town’s parade.”

According to state law, allowing a prisoner to escape through negligence is a crime against public justice punishable by up to two years in jail or a $500 fine.

Crenshaw said Webber’s report came after the union requested to meet with selectmen but were denied. Instead, he said, Town Administrator Jean Kitchen ordered him to write his own report for Webber to use in his investigation.

In his report, Crenshaw also alleged Slatkavitz wrongly ordered him to put his gun away while the two were searching for a possibly dangerous suspect outside a shed on April 5, 2008.

Webber, in his report, sided with Slatkavitz, and, in a Sept. 17, 2008, letter supplementing Webber’s report, Kitchen wrote that the “chief and I feel that you (Crenshaw) would benefit from additional training in the proper handling of your weapon.”

Crenshaw believes Webber and Kitchen’s recommendation was an illegal form of punishment. He claims Webber and Slatkavitz were good friends, and questions whether Slatkavitz was ever disciplined appropriately for the hospital incident.

In her report, Kitchen wrote only that “appropriate action has been taken.”

After Webber died of cancer in November 2008, Crenshaw asked then-interim Chief Jane Moran to look into the union complaints.

“I am unable to address any of the union’s concerns about Sgt. Timothy Slatkavitz,” Moran wrote in the Dec. 17, 2008, letter.

She did, however, clear Crenshaw in the shed incident, saying he acted exactly as he should have and that she would rescind the request for weapons training.

In 2010, Crenshaw was again elected union president and again heard complaints about Slatkavitz.

Crenshaw said officer Marty Laughlin came to him upset that Moran and Slatkavitz had released a deaf prisoner Laughlin had arrested on Sept. 28. The man was arrested using force after Laughlin and another officer said he came at them menacingly following a traffic stop at a police detail.

Crenshaw said Moran and Slatkavitz ignored their officers and sided with the deaf man, who claimed the officers misinterpreted his attempts to communicate.

According to a dispatch audio tape of a phone conversation with the man through an interpreter, Moran apologized, saying the arrest was “a big mistake.”

“We don’t have much training, and I wish that we had more training in how to deal with something like this,” she said.

A second 2010 incident happened on Christmas day, Crenshaw said. According to the police report, Officer Keith Nichols arrested Larisa L. Andujar of Worcester at 10 p.m. on Rte. 9 after he discovered the plates for the car she was driving belonged to a different vehicle.

Andujar — who admitted she had outstanding arrest warrants — was pregnant and needed to go the hospital, so Nichols planned on going with her to guard her.

“Sgt. Slatkavitz then advised me that I would not be, due to manpower issues,” Nichols wrote.

Nichols learned the next day that the woman had stolen the plates and the car from a Worcester man. Nichols issued an arrest warrant for the woman — her fifth — with two of the others being for breaking and entering.

Less than two months later, Andujar was arrested in Worcester after she allegedly broke into an apartment and threatened a couple with a chisel.

According to a Worcester Police Department statement detailing the Feb. 11 arrest, Andujar “appeared desperate” and a man had to wrestle the chisel away from her.

She was slapped with a litany of charges, including assault and battery and assault with a dangerous weapon.

“If we hadn’t let her escape, she might have still been in jail,” Crenshaw said. “It’s a shame.”

Crenshaw said Moran grew angry with him when he questioned her about how Andujar escaped and about whether Slatkavitz followed proper procedure.

Moran suspended Crenshaw for two days with pay on Jan. 5, 2011, for insubordination. In a Jan. 7 letter, she wrote that she wasn’t comfortable putting him on the road because, citing his confusion over procedure as a result of Slatkavitz’ actions, he refused to answer a direct question about his ability to perform.

Crenshaw filed a complaint with the Inspector General’s Office in March and the Attorney General’s Office in July claiming that his whistleblower rights were violated.

He also filed a complaint with the state Ethics Commission against Kitchen in September, alleging that because of Kitchen’s friendship with Webber the union’s complaints never got to selectmen and were never properly investigated.

Attorney General spokes-man Grant Woodman said his office had received the complaint and is reviewing it. The other two agencies do not confirm receipt of complaints or pending investigations.

Crenshaw said he is attempting to get his leave approved under the Family Medical Leave Act so that he can be paid for the time he has missed.

“I play in my head every day, ‘Why did I do this?’” he said, adding that his family is suffering financially from the decision. “But I don’t regret it because if this is allowed to continue, somebody is going to get hurt and the town is going to get sued for it.”

(Brad Petrishen can be reached at 508-490-7463 or bpetrishen@wickedlocal.com.)

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